General

First and foremost the team wants to wish everyone a happy holidays and thank you again for your continued support. That said we have a few updates we would like to share with you on the state of development.

Upcoming update – We will be posting an update sometime this week to the current live version of DHMC. This update will be solely focused on adding some more single player scenarios to the current game as well as a slight update to the 1st missions.

The update to the 1st mission adds an additional success criteria to the mission. After destroying the Radar array the player will also need to travel to an extraction point in order to successfully complete the mission.

The team will post more detailed update information the day it is released.

Road to next major update – The team is continuing its major update/upgrade of the game and is making great progress. The hope is to share this progress with you in a playable version in the first of of 2016 when we will be moving from an alpha state into a beta state of the game.

Among the changes we have talked about in previous posts to movement, animation and physics of the mech we are also working on upping our visuals in all facets of the game. Below are a few pictures on new things to come in the first part of next year.

Been a very busy month behind the scenes for the team as we work on more Contract missions, internal redesign of how SP and MP will converge to fuel the Faction Wars campaign and some major updates to the games graphics and animations.

We are not ready yet to share the vision that the players have help shape for SP and MP, but we are at a point with some of the new updates to the game graphics, animations and physics.

No more floating mechs!

One legacy issue, we pulled in from Aftermath, was that it was built on a platform made for FPS and lacked the ability to do cool things like IK (Inverse kinematics). We are now in process of implementing IK which is being combined with our animations. This is a big change that will really affect the way the chassis moves and reacts to the environment, including giving them a much more sense of weight.

Example 1 (Viper standing on uneven ground)

(above is old vs new)

Example 2 (Abolisher)

As you can see the feet and legs of the mech chassis now conforms to the ground instead of floating above the ground. This may seem like a simple thing, but in our next Dev Dairy we will share some video and these changes will become very apparent in how the mechs move.

Higher Fidelity environments

Another part of what we are working on are higher fidelity environments. This includes more detail to the terrain and the objects in the levels, along with larger environments more similar in size to the Arctic Battlefield.

Speaking of that battlefield, here is a shot with the new terrain which really bring to life the feel of being in more of a glacier type environment.

Other larger environments are in the works

Coming next

The above changes are still a bit away from being released, and in the next Dev Diary we will share all the some more of the behind the scenes happenings. Coming in the near term we are focusing on providing more SP contract missions and improvements to current MP missions.

Look for a game update coming soon……

Next Dev Diary will coming in about a week! Look at for shots of the work we are doing behind the scenes, and we will also share with you the player inspired re-envisioning of Faction Wars!

We launched in July of last year, and started development on the Steam project a bit over a year ago once we received Greenlight support. The game was based off a project that we had started developing on and off in 2010, but since we launched on Steam, players have been seeing a game being build pretty much from the ground up.

Doing Live development was not new to us, but this was the first time we started it so early in the process and we have to say that it has been very rewarding for the team. Though we have had a couple moments where we have been slow to get new updates, the response we have gotten both positive and constructive criticism is exactly what we were hoping.

The game has come a long way, but we know that some of the systems are still rough (i.e. Mech movement, AI functionality for SP and online support, and visual fidelity). So for our next part of the journey and to live up to expectations set by ourselves and all those whom have and continue to support us we are taking steps to improve in these areas.

The Road map

Though we are not putting dates on the roadmap at this time, we can tell you we are already working on several of these items. As we get close to implementation we will be sharing details.

– Updated AI systems and Single Player
— The current AI system is receiving updates in the next couple patches to make SP and MP games involving AI bots a more competitive experience.
— We will be updating to a new AI system that allows us to bring to the game a more compelling SP experience, along with bolster AI support of Faction Wars missions.
– Engine updates
— Updates to visual Fidelity to bring in line with modern game engines
— Physics and animation system updates
— Updates to hit detection
– New Gameplay modes for MP and SP missions
– New customization’s
— New equipment pieces (repair bots, ammo stations, radar jammers, etc…)
— New ammo system allowing you to purchase ammo per weapon
— New torso and legs combos
– Cross platform support. We will still be pushing a Linux branch client out that does not support the Steam overlay. As we work toward updating our visual fidelity and adding more AAA features we will be working also toward a fully functional Linux and then Mac Client.

The Team

Many do not know that Max Gaming is a fully functional game studio whom has been part of development of well over 50 titles across mobile and PC games over the last decade. We are mainly funding development of DHMC ourselves with help from EarlyAccess. With the focus now shifting to bringing more Polish to all aspects of the game we have been able to add more resources.

Outside of adding a couple more programmers and a art resource, we have also asked one of our long time community members to join as to help with the community. We would like to welcome DeMyztikX to the team, whom will be helping us get the word out, be the point person on setting up community events and available to answer question on the forums.

You should still expect updates to the game every 2-4 weeks, and we will be ramping up our community and public relations output over the next couple months.

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

Over the last few weeks we have been working on several different areas of the game. and while we are working to get a stable patch we wanted to share them with you.

Engine update status

As we dug deep into some performance issues on Windows and Linux we looked at the latest updates for our game engine to help resolve some of these problems (as well as provide new features). As such we made the decision that for the past few weeks, our programming team would put some new features on hold so we could do a major update that will benefit everyone.

While this meant that we were not able to put out updates to features like Faction Wars as quickly as we had initially hoped, the good news is that most of the issues that had been blocking updates are now resolved! So we should have a patch up soon.

Art Updates

While our programming team has been tackling this engine upgrade and performance issues the rest of the team has been hard at work in several other areas.

One of the most significant updates has been with updating the weapons and mechs that are currently in the game with more detailed geometry and textures. Though we are only part way thru these visual updates, we will be integrating this new content as we complete it. Here are a few shots including a updated Viper mech with new mesh detail, texturing, and a sampling of some of the weapon updates we have done.

Mech chassis updates

The art team has spent some time looking at the current mech chassis and starting adding more detail into the geometry and in the texturing. The Viper chassis (being the first mech that we made for the game) is the first to get a makeover.

New weapons textures

Below you see the latest Viper chassis with an assortment of the updated weapons models.

Is that a new hanger you see in the background? Why yes it is!

Weapons balancing updates

We have been lucky enough over the last couple months to be able to collect more data around the weapons and also see how different players outfit their mechs. During this time we have found some imbalance issues and have been working on updating all weapons to better fit their designed functionality.

Though not all weapons will change, we have touched about 70% of the values, with that we will be posted a detail of the changes once they are live. Why? Because any current configuration will likely be affected.

We have also added in some chassis specific power plants so configurations can get the custom power and system specifications it needs.

Faction Wars

Though not in the immediate upcoming patch, more Faction Wars functionality is coming very soon with the ability for individuals and squads to join Factions and the Faction interface to include initial functionality.

We will be holding a mock war event in a few weeks which we will post soon including the dates for the event!

Linux and SteamOS

Now that the engine upgrade is completed we can now finish the Linux/SteamOS client port. The initial release of the Linux client will be very early alpha, but with the new engine upgrade we have improved performance a good bit. For more info on the port please visit this forum post:

We want to thank everyone whom has shown their support for the game, and to help celebrate you, we are going to start looking thru posted screenshots and then share our favorites on the forums. The team would especially like to thank Sophisanimus for his extensive thoughts on the weapon balancing and of course dedication to the game. Thanks again, and we hope to continue to earn your support.

Max Gaming Technologies is pleased to announce that its latest mech game “Dark Horizons: Mechanized Corps” is now available for Early Access for the PC platform through the Steam network. We invite all mech fans to come and join us during early access development to wage futuristic war by piloting a fully customizable 50 foot tall mechs into online battle and in the process take part in shaping “Dark Horizons: Mechanized Corps” by providing feedback directly to the development team.

Throughout each update during the Early Access cycle new content will be added and enhanced to allow you to fight for personal glory or battle for territorial domination in a persistent online warzone with your friends in various unique battlefields and combat environments.

Sorry about the lack of posts but we have been working hard for the upcoming Early Access release of Dark Horizons: Mechanized Corps on Steam. More details to come on when the game will be available. To hold you over here is a new screenshot of our new map Ghost Town.

No big announcement this week like the past two weeks, so instead I will be giving you a status update. This past week I worked on more improvements for the non windows versions of the game and did some work on improving the look of the mechs. Once we get some new texture art, we should be posting some screens of the mech visual updates.

As part of our on going support of the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator by Thom Robertson, we are proud to announce that the iOS port is now available. Please visit www.artemis.eochu.com for more information and to purchase this great game.

Artemis is a software game for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It’s also an app for iPhones, iPads, iPods, Android and is cross-compatible with the PC version.